Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

With the news of the unfolding and escalating disaster in Japan dominating the media, our thoughts are with  our friends, especially our previous exchange daughters and their families in Japan. Thankfully they are all safe, but we can't help feeling sad for the magnitude of loss of life and environmental destruction. This morning, I looked around our home and found all kinds of  little reminders of happy times we have had with them. Most are beautiful gifts the girls or their families have given us or made themselves ... a thousand cranes, paper cuts, dolls and fabrics. I even found small gifts from my host families when I was in Japan over 40 years ago, and a little handbag I made a few years ago and this reminds me so much of our girls. We are thinking postive thoughts for you all. Not to forget a small but very special event this week - Happy 3rd  Birthday William. May you always be protected from disaster.

I hadn’t really intended to escape from our ‘bare” house still having the timber floors finished, but we did have a couple of days in Dubbo on the weekend for the District 9670 Rotary Changeover. The days were crisp and the nights were vey cold but it was lovely to see the country look so fresh and green after the rain. And it was great to escape from the house- concrete floors and sparse furniture. We do have some progress but things still are not looking good for my mother’s arrival next Wednesday. We do now have the boards laid and nailed, but still haven’t heard from the sander and finisher.   My other escape last week was to finish a sample piece using one of Bobbi’s nostalgia kits. I am not really good at the vintage romantic look, so with a rather contemporary colour palette, I was fairly happy with the result. It was also my son’s birthday on Monday – nice way to escape the stresses of not having our floor progressing as it should. Everyone in the family enjoyed the ...

Nothing inhibits creativity like a house makeover . Here are photos of the main room of our house and the timber which will hopefully be the floor in a couple of weeks’ time. We have decided to pull up the carpet in all the main areas of the house – living room, dining room and office, and “match” the already beautiful timber floor of our open kitchen/family room.. The furniture is all stacked in the garage . I am in a little bt of a panic as we have already had one delay in the timber delivery and we need to have the house back in order by the time my mother comes to visit for a few weeks on 14 July. However, with a little bit of help from the grandchildren...who knows? Not to be deterred, I am reminded that ‘to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. ( George Kneller) “, so I am trying not to worry too much about the floor and visualise the new spotted gum timber floor it will be. This week I am preparing a little sample for my frien...